wish we could turn back time
by Streaks of Hail
Summary: Jemma Simmons is not here. Not anymore, at least. She is a wisp, a dream, nothing more than a fragment conjured from Fitz's vivid imagination and sharp memory. And yet she is still very much here, capable of her own thoughts and actions and emotions.


**A/N** : _Here we are!_ _I wanted to upload this closer to the premiere date, but I'm actually celebrating my birthday around then (oct. 1st ;), so hopefully this will do?_ _This took me about three drafts, because the idea was quite curious and I really wanted to capture it in a specific way._

 _Songs I listened to while writing this;  
Autumn; Huntar  
Home; Daughter  
Stressed Out; Twenty One Pilots  
Insane; Flume_

* * *

The monolith reminds her of the ocean.

Not of sunny days spent at the beach, building sandcastles and dancing through the waves, but of deep, dark water, broiling and ominous and sharp like a hundred punches to the stomach.

It seems content to keep her in it's embrace. It has no voice, no soul, no physical being other than the overwhelming, blinding darkness that engulfs her entire being. And yet, it has entity. She can sense that much, at least.

She seems to spend all eternity inside that damned rock. At first she tries, she really does. She shouts and screams and runs through every logical situation she can conjure in her head. And then, slowly, as time goes on she just... stops.

What's the point? Why should she shout, when no one can hear? Why should she care, when there's no reason left to? There's something terribly, terribly important that she'a forgotten about, but the monolith is greedy and all-consuming and Jemma is forced to think one. step. at. a. time.

So she sits and she cries until she can't anymore. It's like every sad memory, every bad experience has been pulled to the front of her mind and tripled.

The worst is the crushing loneliness.

"Please, somebody help me," she begs eventually. "I need help. _Please_."

...

Later, she remembers.

Somewhere along the line, when she's cried herself to sleep, she dreams of curly blonde hair and familiar blue eyes and endless nights spent in the lab and -

Fitz. Oh god, Fitz. How had she forgotten him?

She remembers the first time they met,

 _("look, i know you hate me, but i'd really like to get good marks on this assignment so if you'd just - "_

 _"who said i hate you?")_

she remembers the day they signed up for field operations,

 _("fitz, it'll be fun! we'd have to be fools to pass the opportunity up!"_

 _"i'm not so sure, jemma..")_

she remembers their first day on the team,

 _("fitz."_

 _"simmons.")_

she remembers all the bits in between.

 _("you're the hero."_

 _"i always pictured you as watson."_

 _"at least we still have each other."_

 _"tell me you're not hydra."_

 _"you're my best friend in the whole world."_

 _"you're more than that.")_

She remembers the bits afterwards too.

 _("hi, fitz."_

 _"is that really you?"_

 _"you left!"_

 _"these past few months have been the longest we've spent apart since we met."_

 _"be careful."_

 _"you, me. dinner. someplace nice.")_

Dinner. With Fitz.

Those three words run circles in her head, and she almost wants to laugh at her luck. Dinner with Fitz seems so long ago now, but she'd do anything to return back to that point. She'd even go back to having Fitz hate her, if it meant she'd get to leave. _God_ , why had she spent all that time apart from him? The thought seems so silly now.

The monolith swirls - she's not sure how she can tell, but she just _can_ \- and Jemma squeezes her eyes shut.

Light begins to filter through the cracks. Blinding, soul-shattering light, seeping through the very crevices of her very being and right into the little pieces of her (healing) heart.

...

When she wakes, it's clear.

And this time Jemma finds herself in the familiarity of the Playground, splayed out on the cold concrete of the ground, the chill seeping in through her clothes and raising goosebumps along her arms.

That's when she realises the clothes she's in. A navy blue jumper, jeans, a peter pan collar - it's the outfit of dread. A shudder threatens to shove it's way forth and she has to push back the sudden retch that forces its way up. This is the outfit of lost hope, of close encounters, of plummeting through the sky and a pair of arms rescuing her.

(he saved a scientist)

When she reaches her hand up to tousle at her hair, she's surprised to find that it's long once again, tied up into a neat ponytail. That's when she realises something is terribly wrong, footsteps echoing as she all but sprints down the hallways until she reaches her place of safety.

He's hunched over a table as usual, an array of materials spread out in front of him. An overwhelming sense of relief overcomes here and she creeps into the room through the open door.

"Fitz," she all but whispers, seeking his comfort even though she knows he's got his own problems. "What happened? What's going on?"

He turns, all scruff and blue eyes and cardigans (she misses his ties and prim button ups), and the look on his face is so reverent that she wants to cry. "I thought you left."

"You didn't think to check the footage?" she asks, voice dry as she tugs on her sleeves. "It was the stone, Fitz. It - I - "

"Stone? What stone?" he queries, looking confused. "How were your... your.. um, parents? Could you tell them anything? For a moment I - I thought you weren't going to come back."

That's when she knows.

...

Jemma Simmons is not here.

Not anymore, at least. She is a wisp, a dream, nothing more than a fragment conjured from Fitz's vivid imagination and sharp memory. And yet she is still very much here, capable of her own thoughts and actions and emotions.

When this hits her, she doesn't allow it to sink in.

She is going to be clinical about this, she decides. Clinical and cold and calculated. She knows Fitz hates this side of her, but thinking of Fitz just makes her hurt more so she seals that memory away and clenches her jaw. Perhaps this is just some sort of test from the monolith, to prove her worth or something. It's seen in in movies all the time. There's no excuse why it couldn't happen in real life.

She tries Coulson first. She ignores the sinking fact that his hand is intact and healthy, and instead she stands at his doorway as he works on his project.

"Coulson," she tries. When he doesn't respond, she tries over and over again. Nothing.

Throat thick, Jemma attempts Skye next. She's an Inhuman, who's to say that she can't hear her?

But when she taps Skye on the shoulder and pleads for help, there's still nothing in response. That's when she breaks down and sinks to the floor, hands strung through her hair and eyes vacant. There's no tears anymore - she's been bled dry of those for a long while now.

"Why can't you hear me?" she chokes out. "Please, somebody save me."

And suddenly May turns around and stares directly at her, and her hope flares, sudden and hot like a firework.

"May? May! It's me! Please, it's me!"

And after a moment, a voice calls out to May from the hallway. "Are you coming?"

May blinks and shakes her head. "I'm coming. I just thought I heard something."

This is it, isn't it?

...

This is what Jemma's life consists of now. If she can even call it life. No need to drink, sleep, or eat. Nothing to do except to watch Fitz struggle and (fail) at encouraging him. Is this really the same as being _alive_?

Fitz is making progress by himself, at least. She's doing the best she can to help him, but there's only so much a ghost can do, especially when that ghost is still trying to keep things together on her own.

It's times like these she misses Fitz, misses his warm arms and his enthusiasm for monkeys and even the adoring gaze that had used to make her so distressed. Fitz is here but he's not the same, he's not her Fitz and she's not his Simmons, and she wants more than anything else to. go. _home_.

"You're just my... my... I'm.." Fitz snaps his fingers, searching for the word in frustration. They're sitting in his bunk, with her trying to convince him to head down to the lab, to talk to Skye or May or _somebody_ other than her. "Give me the word, Simmons. I can't, um, find the word."

"Imagination," she supplies gently, trying to smile and hiding the disappointment at his angry tone.

(hydra must have trained her up, because it works)

Fitz nods fervently. "Yeah. My, um, my... subconscious! So why are you trying to get me to go out. That's not what I want. So why?"

"Because this is what she would have wanted," Jemma tells him. It's funny, talking of herself in third person. It's like she's someone else entirely (and in some aspects, she is).

"I miss her."

Jemma swallows her tongue and instead smiles warmly at him, like the old-Simmons would have done. She's getting more answers being a hallucination than she ever did by being Fitz's friend. "I know you do. She misses you too."

Fitz fixes her with a gaze. "You don't know that."

"I do." She hopes he can detect the honest, almost desperate, truth in her words. He kicks at the bottom of his bed like a sulky little kid, and the old-Simmons would have laughed so Jemma does too. "You should get dressed, Fitz. The team misses you."

"It's not the same without her."

Jemma is quiet for a long time.

And then: "I know."

...

It's one of those really difficult days, where Fitz refuses to do anything she says and instead spends the day fuming and moping and being bitter, and the mood is so contagious that she has to keep reminding herself to stay in character.

(it's just a play, jemma, just a play and you've got a part. plays always end eventually. right?)

She plasters a reassuring smile and on her features and hovers around his shoulder, just like before. "Have you perhaps tried - "

"Yes!" Fitz snaps. "I've tried - I've tried everything. Go away."

Jemma takes a rapid step back as Fitz waves her away. "You know I can't do that."

"But _she_ did," Fitz says. His knuckles are turning white on the table. "Jemma left."

"She didn't have a choice," Jemma blurts out before she can stop herself, breath heavy.

"'Course she did," Fitz laughs, and it's a scary, scary thing that sends shivers up her spine. "Jemma always has a choice."

"It doesn't mean she makes the right one," Jemma says softly, and with a jolt she realises just how accustomed she's become to talking about herself.

And suddenly Fitz just seems to crumple, deflating against the table. She misses his bright patterns and silly ties. (where have those gone?) "This has been the longest we've been apart," he mumbles. "Ever since me met. I've been, um, I've been.. counting."

Her heart pangs and she gently places her hand on his shoulder. "She'll come back."

"And if - if she does? I'm useless."

"Don't say that," she whispers. "You're almost there."

Unexpectedly, his hand reaches up over hers. "I'm almost there."

...

That becomes their mantra.

 _you're almost there. you're-almost-there. yourealmostthere._

And he is. But she's not. She feels as though every step he gets better, she gets worse. Smaller and smaller with every step, and so one day she'll wake up and she'll be _nothing_ , and then Fitz will be all alone.

...

Days pass. Technically they're all different, but to Jemma it feels as though each day passing is just the same twenty-four hours of horror.

She's never felt so alone.

...

One day they sit in Jemma's bunk on the Bus. She'd tried to persuade him against it at first, but he'd won in the end. The plane reminds her of good memories, but then she passes the place they were dropped out, and her legs start to shake, and suddenly every happy moment is tarnished by _him_.

Her bunk is the same as she left it. Pictures decorate the wall, the bed is neatly-made and a phone lies, abandoned.

Fitz runs his fingers over the pictures, eyes focused intently. "There's one missing."

Jemma remembers with a jolt. "She took it with her."

Fitz glances at her curiously, but he nods. "Yeah, I guess." The thought doesn't seem to console him, like she thought it would.

"I think... I think I'm getting over her.." Fitz says slowly.

It feels like a hundred punches to the stomach (water rushing in), but Jemma avoids his gaze adamantly and nods. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Fitz says, and she knows she'd rather be anywhere else right in this moment.

"Well, I mean - " Jemma tries, but she's silenced because suddenly _Fitz is kissing her_. It's a quick affair, but her stomach is doing flips because despite the fact that his lips are warm and this is the closest she's had to a hug in a long time, there's something _wrong_ about this.

Fitz pulls away with a sharp noise. "You're cold."

"Yeah. Sorry," she tells him as the horror starts to sink in, as she remembers that she is nought but a ghost and to do this to Fitz is so, so wrong. When he reaches for her again she squeezes her eyes shut and concentrates, and suddenly his fingers slip right through her.

"Simmons?" He blinks in confusion.

"Stop. Fitz," she tells him softly. "This isn't right. I'm not her. I'm Simmons, but I'm not.. I'm not Jemma. _I'm not real_."

He stares at her in broadening realisation, and then he's gone, leaving her to cry in the safety of her old bunk.

...

He's healing quicker and quicker.

Neither of them speak of what happened on the Bus. She still thinks about it, of course, but as his sub-conscious she's obliged not to bring up anything he doesn't want to.

She sees him breaking apart after Jemma. That is, the real Jemma.

(she's not sure who she really is anymore)

She's absent during those moments, but every other waking period she's pushing him, helping him, encouraging him. He's grumpy and irritable and quite frankly very blunt, but he's _Fitz_ and she loves him, so she carries on. Because she's realised now, after all this time. She's always loved Fitz. She just didn't know how, before.

And now she knows. But it's almost positively too late.

Then comes the day she's been dreading. He's getting angry. _So_ angry.

"I'm going to see _him_ ," he informs her fiercely, and she doesn't need to be his sub-conscious in order to know who _him_ is.

"This isn't a good idea," she warns him desperately, clinging to the last few straws she has left.

"Who says?" he argues, even as he's swiftly leading the way down.

She chases him. "I say! And she would say too!"

"You don't know that," counters Fitz angrily. "You don't know Jemma."

"I do!" The fear that she feels is making all her words spill out without control or reason. "I am her, Fitz! I _am_ Jemma!"

He turns to face her, eyes flaring. "You are not real."

And then she's gone.

...

She's back in the monolith again. Cold and dark and alone.

But this time, she asks herself.

 _(Who are you?)_

Jemma Simmons.

 _(What are you?)_

Human, composed of flesh and blood and bone.

 _(Where are you?)_

The monolith.

 _(Why are you?)_

She doesn't know.

 _(How are you?)_

1..

2..

3..

4..

Okay. She is okay.

The monolith splits open.

...

Fitz is the first face she sees.

He's all scruff and worried blue eyes and a cream suit so ridiculous she wants to sit and laugh out loud. Instead, she wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him for all she's worth because they're both here and they're both alive and she isn't happy but she's okay and she thinks that one day, maybe ons day, everything will return back to normal.

"You're safe," Fitz mumbles into her hair. "It's okay, you're good now."

"I'm almost there," she tells him, eyes closed.

He stiffens. "Sorry, I just remembered. Um.. when you were gone, I.."

"It's okay," she whispers. "I know."

"No, but - "

"I _know_ ," she stresses again. "I'm sorry I left, Fitz. But don't think for a second you were alone."


End file.
